Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.

"Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation."
-Oscar Wilde

(02-01-2015 12:35 AM)dancefortwo Wrote: This is probably a good time to post this.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen.

-Aaron Freeman.

That's beautiful. I'm gonna show this to my hubby.

"Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation."
-Oscar Wilde

(02-01-2015 06:53 AM)LadyWallFlower Wrote: A poem I read not too long ago that I thought was beautiful:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.

I used this as a eulogy at my father's funeral. He had his own pantheist belief system that viewed life as never dying, but simply changing forms; so I saw this poem as something that would honour both his beliefs and mine.

"I don't mind being wrong...it's a time I get to learn something new..."

Me.

N.B: I routinely make edits to posts to correct grammar or spelling, or to restate a point more clearly. I only notify edits if they materially change meaning.

I don't mind to die... I'll be sad if I don't live longer 'cos I got stuff I'd like to do but... sure, I think may be scary at the moment it happens but... I don't worry about it until then. If I worry *now* and I die *next year*, then I wasted a whole year worrying...

We'll love you just the way you are
If you're perfect -- Alanis Morissette

(06-02-2014 03:47 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote: And I'm giving myself a conclusion again from all the facepalming.

I don't mind to die... I'll be sad if I don't live longer 'cos I got stuff I'd like to do but... sure, I think may be scary at the moment it happens but... I don't worry about it until then. If I worry *now* and I die *next year*, then I wasted a whole year worrying...

How am I scary?

Keep in mind I see people kept alive on life support... For months.... I don't want that for my loved ones, or myself.

Edit: people with no hope for survival, with anoxic brain injuries. It's awful.

"If there's a single thing that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so." - Lev Grossman

(02-01-2015 06:44 AM)Hafnof Wrote: Of these two forces only the force of gravity affects the ball once it is on its journey. The rest is all momentum.

Well, ok, whatever we want to call it. No problem.

(02-01-2015 06:44 AM)Hafnof Wrote: Perhaps what you mean is that once we are launched headlong out of the womb into this world that death inexorably drags on us until we reach the grave?

Sort of. Trying to find the right words....

You know how there is a "life force", the will to live? Even people in horrible conditions, they still struggle to hang on to every last breath. That life force is right there with us all the time, until the end or close to the end.

I think there is an equally ever present "death force", for lack of a better word. Not suicidal thoughts, don't mean that.

Let's try this. Suppose your entire body had to be replaced, and medical science could do it. Your brain too, it has to go, as it's become hopelessly corroded from reading too many posts from Baba Bozo.

So the doctors take all the data out of your brain, upload it to a new brain, and add the new brain to a new body.

That's not death, right? Why?

Because what we're really concerned with, all our memories and opinions and feelings etc, the data, the "me", is still intact.

The "death force" (need a new phrase) is an ever present desire to be free of that data, to escape from the little prison cell of "me".

The passion for sports, entertainment, conversation, scratching one's butt, a million different ways to momentarily kill the "me", to die, psychologically.

Somebody enters the room behind you and you turn around to see who it is, and for just a moment, there is only that observation, and "you" are dead.

Somebody needs to tell me if this line of inquiry is still on topic, not sure.

(02-01-2015 06:53 AM)LadyWallFlower Wrote: A poem I read not too long ago that I thought was beautiful:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.

This is how I deal with the thought of dying, and the uncertainty of what - if anything - happens after that:

76. Cattle die,
kindred die,
we ourselves also die;
but the fair fame
never dies
of him who has earned it.

77. Cattle die,
kindred die,
we ourselves also die;
but I know one thing
that never dies, -
judgement on each one dead.
~ Hávamál, translated by Benjamin Thorpe

By "judgement" is not meant divine judgement, but the judgement of the community of people you shared your life with.
The basic point in my denomination of Asatru is that if you do good in life, help out your community, get known for good things, then that will live on afterwards - and benefit your friends and family.

You live on through the memory of you, both in social terms and in terms of what you physically leave behind (build) in the world, and through any kids you might have.
I think that is a pretty tangible afterlife that is worth building on in this life - while also not forgetting to have some fun.